According to the slideshow by Sylvain Cottong, who is an employee at http://www.integratedplace.com, what is the definition of 'service design', and why is it so important? (5 paragraphs)


Service design is an extension of the product and services. It makes these products and services more useful, usable and desirable for the users. Its main focus is customer experience and the quality of service they encounter. Service design it centered on one principle and that is human centered approach. For example, a restaurant would choose to have a service design agency to change its menu layout to improve customer experience.

Service design has become an important factor for companies to remain competitive and continue to attract customers. Most products today are combined with services, thus it is the overall experience that counts and that is judged by customers. This emerging field combines design from products and interaction design for the experience of and the interface to services.

Some of the tools and methods used in service design include service blueprinting in which allows quantitative description of critical service, ideation, context mapping and participatory design in which reveals users conscious and latent needs. During this method users participate in a workshop facilitated by a tutor. Lastly, another method include service prototyping with includes scenarios, and story boards.

The key benefits of service design include ease of use of the product resulting in higher conversion rates, decrease support costs and greater customer satisfaction and loyalty, and improved brand image. In this day and age the whole experience actually counts more that the actual selling. The most important thing is that service design represents a competitive advantage for modern businesses.

In conclusion, service design has slowly becoming an important part of any businesses because more than the product itself the most important relationship is the customers. The customers make or break the business as a result the efficiency, relationship and usefulness of the product and services is utmost important.